Sharper (2023) Movie Ending Explained: Julianne Moore and Sebastian Stan starrer ‘Sharper’ is a swoon-worthy neo-noir crime thriller that keeps a sense of mystery intact till the end. Directed by Benjamin Caron, it opens up layer after layer of cons like a Russian doll and manages to keep you on the edge of your seat.
With self-professed sharp minds, the screenplay brings a riveting tale of con-foolery that keeps you invested in its game of crooked motives and malign intentions. Every surprising revelation makes us see the corrupt nature of power and how wealth enables it.
Let’s find out what happens in this film, written by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka.
Sharper (2023) Movie Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis
Character 1: Tom
The film defines ‘Sharper’ as ‘the one who lives by their wits.’ Tom (Justice Smith) meets an infectiously curious customer in a New York bookshop, Sandra (Briana Middleton). She asks for a hardcover of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. He finds it on one of the shelves and brings it to her. She says that she needs it for her Ph.D. from NYU. She gives a long-winding title for her thesis – Redefining Radicalism: The Rise of Black Feminism in American Literature, which instantly impresses him.
Having been charmed by her, he asks her out on a date. She rejects it and says, ‘ She is single and likes being single.’ Since her credit card doesn’t work and she doesn’t have enough cash, he says that she can pay for it later. Later that evening, she returns to pay the amount and then leaves. But then she turns back and accepts his offer for a date. They go out and discuss their literary lives. In the past, he had an unsuccessful novel-writing experience and a traumatic past after his mother’s death. On the other hand, she lost her parents when she was just a kid.
They resonate with each other since ‘misery loves company’ and so does their intellect. They revel in these stories about books and profess their love for them. Hearing her fond memory of Jane Eyre, he brings her back to the store and offers its first-ever edition. In that tender moment, they kiss each other. That kiss begins their relationship, which goes from casual dates to intimate nights. During all that time, you keep seeing their love for bookish knowledge and intellectual pondering.
One day, her brother, Jason, knocks on her door. She stops him from entering and then shares the painful story of their family. Not long after, she joins him in his birthday celebration. His friend says that he is happy for him, seeing him get over his phase of depression. Later at night, she asks why they never go to his place. He opens up about his dysfunctional family and resonates with the quote from Anna Karenina – ‘All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
After that, Sandra keeps ignoring his texts for a while. He finally comes up to her apartment to speak about it. She says that her brother’s the reason, who desperately needs money. Tom offers to help with his father’s money despite knowing it’s a lofty amount. He reveals that he is wealthy, which is how he can run a bookstore business that suffers losses.
Tom sees that wealth as a blot on his conscience and wishes it to be rather used by someone needy like Sandra. He gives her the money and offers to tag along when she returns. She denies him coming there since the people she is about to meet are dangerous. He agrees not to come. After that, she suddenly stops responding to him altogether and never communicates with him. He even goes to her apartment to find out that it’s been locked.
Character 2: Sandra
On Christmas Eve, Sandra walks through a shady neighborhood and enters a bar, looking for someone named Larusso. She assumes that to be the man sitting at the bar. Then, a woman calls her ‘Sandy’ from behind and asks her to join. Since Sandra’s regular parole officer couldn’t be present, she came as a replacement. During their dialogue, the woman brings up the subject of Sandy’s drug use, which makes her take action against her. Sandy asks if this matter can be solved with some money. The woman accuses her of bribing and tries to incriminate her further.
Hearing their argument, the man from the bar walks up to their table. He offers to pay all the cash he has, along with his expensive watch. Within moments, he takes all of it back, confesses doing it since he was drunk, and leaves immediately. The woman goes out to bring him back inside. She paints an emotional picture of her family and then maligns Sandy’s image for him. Since he was about to give that money without much thought, she agreed to make a deal for five grand to keep mum about his wealth. It would help her take care of her family and keeps him safe from the eyes of the law.
This man – Max (Sebastian Stan), then takes Sandy along with him to his place. He then investigates her for any traces of drugs or weapons. Since she does not have any, he offers her two options: she can sleep at his place or leave. If she stays, that means she agrees to work for him. In the morning, he shares details about his life. He’s like Naval Ravikant-kind of disciplined guy who doesn’t watch movies because they are a waste of time! Alas, he mentions why she is there. Like how he did the night before, he promises to teach her how she can give the impression that she is someone she is not.
Max leaves Sandy with literary classics to read. He comes home later at night to find her high on drugs. He locks her outside his house and then brings her in with a promise that she will be clean afterward. Slowly and steadily, he teaches her to be ‘Sandra,’ a literary expert, which is the version of her that she presents to Tom. With Max, she gains literary knowledge and how to walk and talk among this different class of people. Over the period, the two start getting romantically involved with one another. So, he takes her out on a date in a fancy restaurant.
By then, Max had taught Sandy the art of conning. So, during their dinner, he challenges her to take another man in the bar to his hotel room to get in bed with him. She manages to charm William and goes back to his room in no time. After some time, Max comes out knocking on their door, pretending to be her abusive boyfriend. In that scenario, they manage to steal Wiiiam’s cash and successfully get out. While she feels sorry for the man, Max warns her never to feel pity for their victims. Then, the two end up kissing each other.
Character 3: Max
Max gets out of his expensive car in front of a building in a posh neighborhood. He enters one of its upscale apartments to meet Madeline (Julianne Moore), who introduces him to her new partner, Richard Hobbes (John Lithgow), as her son. He comes across as an edgy child whose edginess makes Madeline worry. She takes him away from the party, asks for basic details from his life, and feigns concern for his well-being. She also asks whether he has started retaking drugs. He gets enraged in no time and starts shouting at her. He pisses in one of the beakers and offers her to drink it (as in to say, check if there’s alcohol in it). The very next moment, he apologizes for doing so. Then he leaves, and Richard is left consoling her.
The next day, Madeline speaks about Max, how his recent business venture failed, how his father left him a huge sum before his death, and how she has been overprotective of him since she had him at a young age. Max overhears that conversation and gets upset that she still treats him like a kid. Robert invites him to an event that he will be going to with Madeline. Max refuses to join them and stays back instead. While the couple returns with a romantic fervor, they find Max getting arrested by a police detective for possession of cocaine. Robert bribes him with some money and makes him go away.
But Madeline understands that it is yet another one of Max’s cons of trying to steal money from her. She is right in her assumption. Once this fake detective leaves, she confronts Max for his entitled attitude, slaps him, and orders him to leave. The next day, she goes to meet him at his place. Instead of hugging him as a mother, she passionately kisses him. Suddenly it becomes clear that she and Max are romantic partners who are conning Robert for his wealth. During their passion-fuelled interaction, she says how she does not like an older partner (eluding to the fact that she loves younger him).
The next day, Max goes up to meet Robert at his office, who gives him a tour of his office. His son, Tom, interrupts his dialogue with Max to have a casual dialogue with him. Robert refuses to do so. Rather, he takes Max into his office and passionately speaks about how much he hates his son and dislikes inheriting the family business. On his birthday, he asked for a signed copy of Charlotte Bronte’s novel – Jane Eyre (the same one he gifted Sandra).
Then, for Max, Robert offers a deal of a constant paycheck in exchange for leaving his mother alone for her sanity. Max is angry at first by this proposal but eventually agrees under one condition. He needs to get a year’s worth of the amount, in cash, in one installment, at the earliest. Since Robert has an abundance, he accepts to do so. This way, Max manages to con Robert successfully. Later, Madeline joins him in a bar to celebrate this success. While their third partner (the fake detective from before) asks for his deserved cut, the couple refuses to pay his worth, stating some other costs.
The next day, Max hopes to meet Madeline. Instead, he gets a call from her, saying that she plans to stay with Robert. She says that she is tired of their life, and a life with Robert ensures her much more stability (and an opportunity to get his wealth after his death – which she doesn’t explicitly mention). She cons him by sending cops to his doorstep. While he tries to run away from getting caught by the police, she fakes sorrow after Robert’s death.
Character 4: Madeline
Tom returns home for the funeral, where he and Madeline learn about wealth distribution. Instead of Tom, Robert left the bulk of his wealth to Madeline. Tom is only left with the chairman position of his foundation, where Madeline is a trustee. She tries to console him, stating its unfairness. In reality, she couldn’t be happier about it. She starts enjoying her life of excess. Soon after, she finds some detectives at their home, whom Tom had brought in to investigate Sandra’s sudden disappearance. Through their research, he learns that Sandy was a felon with a troubled drug and criminal history.
Seeing him getting bummed out by this heartbreak, Madeline tells him to handle the matter maturely. While she takes him to see his new place, his hired detectives get hold of Sandra and bring her to their upscale apartment. She was trained by a person, who gave her all the lessons to con, who has some sort of connection to their family, which is why he wanted to take revenge. So, out of concern for her well-being, Tom wants her to stay at their apartment. Madeline is against doing so, but due to Tom’s insistence, she goes on to speak with Sandy.
Since Madeline is certain that Max is behind Sandra’s con attempt, she asks her about it. She offers Sandra money to keep her mouth shut. But Sandra doesn’t want money. She wants Max, who left her alone at a train station for three days. Due to this blackmail attempt, Madeline allows her to stay there. Then she calls Max to speak about Sandra’s strategy. Meanwhile, Sandra keeps getting increasingly dramatic over the period, which creates pressure on Madeline to get in touch with Max at the earliest. And suddenly, he texts her to tell her to call him.
Madeline calls Max and mentions that she wants him to come back. You sense a passionate plea in her words that was absent in their conning approach. While he was only coming for a transaction, it seems like he will come for something more. This news makes Sandra’s health get better. So, without wasting time, Madeline asks her to leave her life right after she meets Max. Sandra assures that she expects nothing else from her.
Sharper (2023) Movie Ending, Explained:
Do Madeline and Max get back together?
Madeline takes Sandra to meet Max. Seeing him, she runs toward him and confronts him for leaving him alone. Seeing her emotional outbreak, Madeline returns from her touchy-feely approach to a ruthless one to handle things. She makes it painfully clear that Max conned Sandra, and it is what they do to other people. Then suddenly, two cars arrive from the back, and Tom’s hired detectives get down along with him.
One of the detectives says that his suspicion is affirmed that she was doing it for money. Then, Tom confronts Sandra about tricking him into doing things only for money. Due to his boiled-up resentment, Tom takes the detective’s gun and points it at Sandra. Then he points it at Madeline instead and threatens to kill her. She takes it away from him and points it back at him. He paranoidly forces her to kill him and ends up shooting himself with that gun.
While Tom lies on the ground in a pool of blood, Madeline persists n her attempts to save herself. As a way to make amends, she offers to transfer her inheritance to the foundation that Tom owned. She signs all the papers and decides to leave on a plane. Max and Sandra join her. While Max is angry that Madeline gave away millions of dollars of inheritance, she clears his doubts about what she did. Since she is a trustee of this foundation, she will be the chairperson because of Tom’s death. So, Madeline and Max get together due to their lust for wealth. Hearing them speak about it right after Tom’s death makes Sandra’s blood boil. As a result, she runs away to the washroom.
Who cons who in the end?
Madeline looks at the red spot on her white shirt, the same one she wore while she shot Tom. She doesn’t think it is blood and asks Max whether he is behind this con, trying to implicate her in a crime since she tried to do the same to him in the past. Max rejects being in on that plan. Madeline realizes it is not he but Sandra who has planned this. Meanwhile, Sandra walks back out of the airport, reminiscing her memories with Tom and why she felt connected to him.
What happens to Tom and Sandra? Do they get back together or con each other?
After conning him with Max, she saw the news about Robert’s inheritance, where most of his wealth went to Madeline instead of Tom. She realizes it is the result of Robert seeing Tom as a disappointment. So, she decides to bring him in on a plan to con the ones who conned them both. They work out elaborate details of the scene of the shootout, where every emotion and every action were choreographed to make it seem realistic.
Who gets Robert’s inheritance?
Sandra gets out with the hope that she will finally live a life as a changed self, leaving her traumatic past behind. Tom also gets all his inheritance back because of her, the same that was robbed from him because of her. However, now that they are both transparent about their lives, they decide to live in the comfort of their intellectual abode of the bookstore – where their story started.
